1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for managing jobs and tasks, and, more particularly, to systems and methods for managing, scheduling, and retaining a record of the construction of pits and the tasks associated with the pits and for managing labor and materials associated with such construction and tasks.
2. Background of the Invention
The Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) must excavate and backfill tens of thousands of pits each year to lay new underground telephone fiber and to uncover damaged underground telephone fiber for repairs. The RBOCs usually contract these pit excavating and backfilling jobs to a pit contractor, each pit contractor covering a certain geographical area within the areas in which the RBOC operates. Once a pit contractor has excavated (opened) a particular pit, the RBOC uses technicians to repair or lay new fiber in that pit. After the technicians have finished their work in that pit, the pit contractors backfill (close) that pit.
Over the years, various ways to manage these operations sprang up as each of many RBOC technician managers created his own system. For simplicity, this description will refer to this conglomerate of many different systems as the “ad-hoc pit management system.” Even though the ad-hoc pit management system is a conglomerate, there are many generalities across the many different systems within the ad-hoc pit management system. As such, when referring to the ad-hoc pit management system this description will sometimes refer to actions common to all of the many different systems but other times will be pointing out the strengths or flaws of a smaller group from within the many different systems. In both cases, they will be referred to simply as the ad-hoc pit management system.
With this current ad-hoc manner of managing pits inherited and currently used by most of the RBOCs (ad-hoc pit management system), information passes between different persons inside and outside of the RBOC to establish that a pit needs to be opened; when and where to open a pit and of what type; when and where the technician must lay new fiber or repair previously installed fiber; and when to close the pit. Under the ad-hoc pit management system, to perform these functions information passes from various RBOC personnel to the technician managers, and then back and forth between the technician managers and (i) the technicians who work with underground fiber (technicians), and (ii) contractors who open and close pits (pit contractors).
Acting as part of the ad-hoc pit management system, the technician managers, technicians, and pit contractors pass information, which passes in many different ways. On an ad-hoc basis, some technician managers communicate by telephone, some by fax, and some by email. The technicians and contractors communicate back to the technician manager also in at least one of these three ways. Because of this ad-hoc manner of communicating, some information is lost, some is delayed, and some is inaccurately transferred. This causes pits to be delayed in opening and closing, not opened, or opened at incorrect locations. In some cases, such as when a pit is open too long, these errors can endanger the public. In other cases, these errors cost a great deal of money: some by having to dig pits over again; some by misallocating resources, such as allocating technicians to pits not yet properly opened; some by loss of revenue for services dependent on the repair of the underground fiber not being timely resumed; some by increased changes from pit contractors for pits staying open too long. For example, with the ad-hoc pit management system, when the technician manager believes that a pit has been opened and opened in the right location and of the right type, he instructs his technicians to go to the pit and to repair or lay new fiber. Unfortunately, however, under the ad-hoc pit management system, the technician manager is correct only about seventy percent of the time. As a result, the pits are often not opened or are not opened properly. Because of this, when a technician is sent by the technician manager to the pit to perform a job, thirty percent of the time the technician cannot perform his task because the pit is not ready. The technician manager must then reallocate the technician to other jobs and must contact the pit contractor to instruct the contractor to open the pit properly. This waste of the technician manager's time and the technician's time wastes the RBOC's resources.
Also as part of the ad-hoc pit management system, internal information passes from RBOC personnel to the technician manager, generally to establish a need to open or close a pit. This information often comes from persons. For example, in the RBOC's customer service department, such as when a customer complains about a pit being open too long; in the emergency cable repair department, usually stating that service has been interrupted due to a fiber failure that must be repaired; or the engineering department via the OutSide Plant Construction Management system (OSPCM) (as set forth in patent application Ser. No. 09/151,666), which is incorporated by reference herein, setting forth pits that need to be opened in order to lay new underground fiber. While this internal information is generally more accurately and consistently communicated to the technician manager than information between the technician manager and the technicians and pit contractors, it still suffers from delays and information being lost.
Generally, if the customer service, engineering, or the emergency cable repair departments wish to communicate a need to repair a fiber or to lay new fiber (and thus to open or close a pit) to the technician manager, the technician manager may not know of such need until the next day. This is because these departments must rely on phone calls, faxes, emails, or similar systems that, even when successfully communicated, often require the technician manager to call/fax/email back to the applicable department to get further details rather than immediately order the pit contractor to open or close a pit. Thus, the ad-hoc pit management system is sluggish—delaying resumption of service, new service, or further irritating customers that wish a pit to be closed.
In addition to these different persons inside and outside of the RBOC passing information as part of the ad-hoc pit management system, some of the technician managers attempt to create a record based on compiling facts regarding: (i) when each pit was opened and closed; (ii) the location of each pit; (iii) pits that were unsafe; (iv) any disputes or suits arising out of a pit or the project associated with it; (v) how long after requesting a pit contractor to open a pit did it take for the contractor to open the pit; (vi) how long after requesting a pit contractor to close a pit did it take for the contractor to close the pit; (vii) how often a particular pit contractor improperly opens a pit; and (viii) how often a pit contractor bills the RBOC for closing a pit when that pit was not closed or not properly closed. Unfortunately, the ad-hoc pit management system, through its various technician managers, compiles a record of these events often inconsistently and inaccurately, making the compiled record incomplete and untrustworthy. In addition, even when correct, the ad-hoc pit management system, through the technician managers, retains these records in divergent and hard-to-access ways. These ways include by hand-written notes on scratch pads, differing formats on word processing documents, and differing formats in spread sheets, among others. Because of this, the ad-hoc pit management system fails to compile an adequate history of these events.
Also, the ad-hoc pit management system fails to make what information it does retain easily or quickly accessible. As noted above, the ad-hoc pit management system compiles the record of events surrounding each pit job inaccurately and incompletely, but further fails in that these records are difficult to access. These hand-written notes, various word processing files, and spread sheets, are not accessible to most of the persons and groups needing such information. Thus, even if the events are compiled, they are very difficult to access, if at all.
Further, the ad-hoc pit management system fails to passively notify, and often to actively notify, the technician managers, as well as other persons in need of such information, of changes made to the requirements of how and where new fiber is to be laid or old fiber repaired. Because of this, technician managers often fail to instruct technicians and pit contractors of changes in requirements, requiring work to be performed again or the RBOC to settle for work done incorrectly.
Lastly, the ad-hoc pit management system fails to grant adequate feedback from the pit contractor, delaying the opening of pits. Under the ad-hoc pit management system, the technician manager instructs the pit contractor when to open the pit and the pit contractor responds as to when he will have the pit open. Usually, under the ad-hoc pit management system, the pit contractor will take seven to ten days to have the pit open and will not respond back to the technician manager as to when the pit was actually opened. For this reason, the pit contractor does not have an incentive to open the pits quickly because the pit contractor does not have to inform the technician manager as to when the pit is actually opened, just that the pit contractor intends to have it opened by a certain date.